Apocalyptic lovesong
by Decayee
Summary: AU. A conwonman named Cara finds herself in the middle of an zombie-apocalypse with a women she has just met, the thief Dahlia.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Apocalyptic Lovesong  
><strong>Pairing:<strong> Cara/Dahlia, future background Richard/Kahlan  
><strong>Summary:<strong> AU Zombie-apocalypse.  
><strong>Spoilers:<strong> None  
><strong>Disclaimer:<strong> I own nothing. I'm just having fun.  
><strong>Note:<strong> It's mostly unbetad so it's probably full of mistakes.

If Cara hadn't been Cara, things might have ended differently. Now Cara was very much herself and this was the only way it could have gone. And being the way she was, Cara had always imagined that if the end of the world were to come, it would come with a bang, and end with an even bigger one. She got one of those right. But the beginning of the end came quietly, sneaked up on the world like a burglar. And for Cara it started with an actual one.

But before it was about Cara, it was about coughs and sneezes, and raging fevers that somehow seemed contagious. Then there where people in their best years suddenly dying in their sleep, others that died at work, in their cars, in front of their TV. And after that, there were bodies disappearing, and reports of recently deceased sighted walking the streets.

All of this passed Cara by. After all, con-men usually had enough of troubles of their own without having to care about the rest of the worlds. Now, Cara wasn't used to that much difficulty, but lately all her cons seemed to fall apart. People she relied on vanishing and important calls where never answered or returned. With failing cons came running, and with running came a car. A car she did not own. And with said car came a burglar.

It was a beautiful summer's day, which it always seems to be when bad things happen, and which is why Cara never expected it too. A big con had fallen trough and she needed to leave town for a while. Not that anyone had made any threats, quite the opposite; the world inside Cara's illegal little bubble had been awfully quiet lately. Cara saw it as the calm before the storm. Better to be safe miles from this place when everyone involved finally realized how bad it all went.  
>She hurried trough a suburban neighborhood in chase of a house that seemed empty and a car that seemed drivable. A quiet neighborhood meant less attention drawn to her and a nice suburban house often meant more valuable things to take. After all she wasn't a thief; she did her share of steeling but could not claim to do it well. As she made her way through the streets, looking as innocent as someone like her, with her tattoos, piercings and cold eyes, could possibly look, she walked into a limping figure.<p>

"Hey!" she snapped "Watch were you're going"

The man gurgled something in respond, took a couple of rapid steps towards her and closed his yellow teeth with a crack were her hand had just been.

"What are you doing?" she pushed him away and saw him clearly for the first time. The entire front of his dirty shirt was covered in something that looked eerily like dried blood.

She hurried away from the stranger, who was now coughing up red bits of _something._ An uncomfortable feeling crept its way up her spine once she started to actually look at the cars. _They were all there_. It was midday on a Monday, but still there was a car on pretty much every driveway. And once she really looked at the houses instead of trying to find the biggest, she realized that they all looked more or less empty. The whole street. Actually, the whole city, when she thought about it.

She looked back at him. He was slowly perusing her, now joined by a little girl, maybe 5 years old, with a crust of old blood covering her mouth and nose.

Disgusted, Cara made her way to the nearest house. This was wrong, everything was wrong. Whether the house was filled to the top with shiny objects and decorated with a corvette on the driveway or not, didn't really matter anymore.

The door was slightly ajar and squeaked a bit when she pulled it towards her. All the lights seemed to be on and Cara could hear a radio playing somewhere. But no voices, no footsteps, no dog bursting towards her in spite of the "beware of the dog" sign next to the doorbell. The man and the girl had reached the driveway and she shut the door behind her, not sure if she was closing out the danger, or trapping herself inside with it.

"What are you doing in my house?"

Cara turned. Someone was standing in the kitchen doorway. No blood, no wounds, no foaming mouth. Just a girl. A girl around Cara's age with blonde hair and grey eyes. But most importantly, no weapons in sight.

"This isn't your house," Cara disagreed.

The apparent liar raised her eyebrows.

"You have your shoes on, these are nice expensive hardwood floors, and I don't think they've ever been walked on with shoes," Cara tilted her head toward the floor, amused. "There are three pictures of the family in the hallway alone; you are not in any of them. And that is a lot of jewelry in your pocket."

Grey eyes hardened.

"Well, it's not your house either, and I doubt the owners will be needing this," she pulled a handful of golden necklaces from her pocket. "Or their car for that matter."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because they are all dead in their bedrooms room, for now" she sounded bored, indifferent, and tried to make her way passed Cara, but Cara grabbed a hold of her arm.  
>"You killed them?" Cara was appalled. Stealing was one thing, but murder was quite another.<br>"No, I'm a thief, not a killer. They were dead when I got here, like the majority of this city is by now." Her hand reached for the door handle.  
>Cara pulled her arm so that they faced each other.<br>"What are you talking about?" Cara asked confused.  
>She looked at Cara in disbelief, like she couldn't really decide whether Cara was serious or not.<br>"Where have you been? Living under a rock or something? People are dying left and right, and unfortunately not staying so." A bitter smile graced her lips.  
>"Like zombies?" Confusion was replaced by amusement, this girl had to be on something.<br>"Yeah, like zombies. Like undead, people killing, brain eating zombies" The smile disappeared. She looked at Cara. "And you don't believe me, fine. What's your name?"  
>"Cara."<br>"Well Cara, I'm Dahlia. I was nice to meet you, but I'm not staying in this place to get torn to pieces by movie monsters gone real. Believe me or not, just watch your back."

She opened the door just to slam it shut again.

"What? I thought you were leaving." Cara couldn't help but let some resentment creep into her voice. "Or maybe you weren't done looting the bodies."

But Dahlia merely stared at the door, hand still on the handle.

"There are a lot of people that may or may not be zombies on the other side of this door."

Cara walked up to the tiny little window on the door, raised to her toes and peeked out. The man and the girl where no longer alone. The entire driveway was covered with people. People dressed in clothes in different stages of decomposing. People covered in blood and wounds. People that looked awfully lot like zombies.

"Shit."


	2. Chapter 2

Now Dahlia were very much herself too, which is why there was really no way of telling how something like this would end for her. Unlike Cara, thoughts of the end never really entered her mind. Dahlia lived life on a day to day basis. Where Cara was fixed; reliable and predictable, Dahlia where fluid; impulsive and open-minded. If you got trough today you'd just have to wait and see what tomorrow would bring, and that could be absolutely anything. So when people started dropping, only to rise again as moaning, slow walking copies of themselves, the thought of zombies didn't seem so unlikely. And what would one do when a zombie-epidemic starts?  
>Watch movies of course. So Dahlia bunkered up in her apartment, filled her DVD-cabinet with zombie-movies, her gun with bullets and her body with antibiotics. The rest just had to work itself out.<p>

The TV-stations shut down a couple of days after it all started, but the radio stayed up. Never anyone speaking, only songs playing, left forgotten on a loop. She had to admit that the lack of human sighs where rather distressing, but she wasn't willing to accept that this was the end yet. Or that there weren't other survivors. She would just have to look for them.

Being a thief never had been the plan, but while growing up Dahlia had learned that sometimes living of what others wasn't willing to give was the only way to stay alive. And with no education to speak of, job offers wasn't flying her way. Best to keep to what you know.  
>Though that slender little girl dreaming of fame and fortune had never found any delight in taking from others, nor did the tough woman she had become. So even now, with monstrosities claiming the world, did the thought of stealing leave a bitter taste in her mouth. Stealing from the dead, how noble. If that little girl could see her no, big grey eyes filled with all that innocence she once possessed, she would be oh so proud.<p>

But somehow stealing from rich dead didn't seem as bad, which is what she was doing when she met Cara.

"Why don't they try to get in?" Cara asked. She had been standing by the door, nose pressed to the tiny window, for the last 20 minutes.

"I don't know" Dahlia answered from the living room, where she had sunk down on the couch. "Maybe they are just stupid, or waiting for something".

Cara turned around to stare at Dahlia, face white. "Waiting for what?"

Dahlia shrugged. "I don't know, the king of the zombies?"

Cara kept staring at her. She opened her mouth, closed it again and turned back to the window.

"That is not even funny" she muttered.

Dahlia sighed and sank deeper into the couch. She hadn't been joking.

"How can you be sleeping?"

Dahlia woke up with a jerk as the other side of the couch sank down.

"What?"

"I asked you how you can be sleeping, with those things all around the house" Cara's troubled face was uncomfortably close.

"Well, I am tired"

"Well, that could have gotten you killed you know. Sleep is for the weak." Cara was completely serious. And Dahlia couldn't help but laugh.

"Sleep is for the weak? Did you really just say that? Who are you?"

Cara turned her head away, offended. But Dahlia couldn't help but keep smiling. Sleep is for the weak, how precious.

They sat quiet it the half dark room, all the curtains closed to keep out the dead stares.

"Let's say they are not zombies" Cara whispered, like doing so would make them less real. "Then what could they be?"

"I don't know" Dahlia answered, voice almost as low. "Maybe they are not dead. It's some virus. It causes their hearts and brains to slow down. The cells in their bodies stop renewing so the old ones just dies. Or maybe it's god that finally have had enough with us. Turned us into a sick joke, or a game. 'Let's see what all you technology and money, everything your greed has given you, let's see what all that can do for you when your own bodies turn against you'. Turning us against ourselves like puppets." She glanced at Cara who looked back, eyebrows raised and a smirk on her face. "Or maybe not you know, what do I know anyway" She shrugged and looked away, trying to play it down.

"Wooow. You really are a bitter pill aren't you" Cara teased.

Grey eyes turned to steel as they met Cara's. "I don't believe I have anything to be happy about at the moment, nor do you as it seems."

Cara's smile faded. Slowly her hand reached out for Dahlia but stopped halfway. She stared at her own hand and her eyebrows wrinkled together in confusion which made Dahlia believe that Cara had never been used to comfort in her live, neither giving nor receiving. Dahlia was about to take hold of Cara's retreating hand as the big window behind them shattered with a loud crack. The curtain was ripped down, letting the sun seep into the room hitting the glass that flew through the air around them like in slow motion, creating millions of tiny rainbows.

* * *

><p>Dahlia flew up from the couch beside Cara and was on her feet before the sound had even echoed out. As Cara tried to do the same she felt an arm slither round her throat and pull her back down. A smell of rotten meat filled her nostrils. She struggled to get out of the grip as Dahlia looked at what was behind her, and ran. Soon she was out through the wooden arch that lead to the vestibule. So much for the moment they just had, Cara thought as she felt a warm breath below her ear followed by the sound of closing teeth. She hit her closed fist back into the face of the thing behind her, and by the sound figured she managed to break something. The grip round her neck loosened and she got free.<p>

As she finally got up from the couch she made the mistake of looking behind her. Only one of the three giant windows covering one of the living room walls was broken, but a dozen of the creatures had already made their way inside. And more were trying to squeeze their way through, cutting themselves on the pieces of glass still stuck in the window frame. The one closest behind the couch was a man in his early thirties who once must have been very handsome. Now his cheeks were sunk in and the newly broken nasal bone had thorn the skin. In her haste to get away Cara tripped on something on the floor. As she hit the hard wood she could feel sharp glass burying itself into her hands and knees. Ignoring the pain she started crawling towards the doorway, not coming far before a hand grabbed hold of her ankle. A young boy was lying on the floor behind her, surely the cause of her falling. His leg was cut off below the knee, leaving noting but the bone cleanly scraped. But he didn't seem to notice anything other than Cara, on whom he kept his empty eyes fixed. A cruel smile disgraced his dark face.  
>Cara turned away as she kicked, couldn't bring herself to see what damage her foot might cause. The hand didn't let go after the impact, at least not until two strong hands grabbed hold of Cara and lifted her up like she was nothing but a child. As her felt the floor under her feet once more she started to struggle in the unwanted embrace and managed to turn around and face her capturer. It was the man again. This close the stench was overwhelming. In the struggle the man's worn-out coat had opened. Sown to the inside of the soft material, right over the heart, was a photo of the man with two small children. His eyes were shining with life and joy, none of which could be found in the real ones facing her. Before he could have a second try at biting her something sharp scraped by her arm and went straight into the man's chest before it was pulled out again. For a second or so the photo was pressed against his heart, where he had always meant to keep it.<p>

Hands gripped Cara's shoulders once more, this time accompanied by words. Dahlia's.

"Come on, we need to go" She screamed, trying to keep her voice calm but Cara could hear the panic underneath. "He will be back up no doubt about it. And the others! Come on!"

She pulled Cara around and she saw what she held in her shaking hand. It was an umbrella, a blue umbrella with a pattern of smiling suns and rainbows. Except for the top which was dark red. Somehow Cara felt mocked.

"I need to do something first" Cara found it hard to speak. "With him" She pointed at the body. "I need to… There is something I need to take".

Dahlia didn't protest though her dislike was written all over her face. Instead she opened the umbrella to create some sort of shield between Cara and the oncoming creatures. Cara carefully opened the man's coat, making sure not to look at his face, and peeled off the photo. It was warm and sticky with blood that leaked through her fingers as she held it tight.

"I'm ready now" she said as she stood up. "But there is nowhere to go."

"Into the kitchen for now" Dahlia said as she backed up with the umbrella still held out, not wanting to turn her back to the beings.

Cara sank down against the kitchen counter as Dahlia did her best to block the door. This was all getting too much. She put the photo flat on the surface before her. Truth be told she didn't know why she had taken it, why she felt like she needed to. But as soon as she saw it something broke inside her. It finally became real, the moment she saw the contrast between the smiling man on the picture and the one lying bleeding on the living room floor. He had been that man once; he had been an actual person with a family, hopes and dreams. They all had, but Cara needed this photo to remind herself that they no longer were. Because if she were to survive this, she couldn't afford seeing them like that.

"Could you at least clean if off?" Dahlia asked from the door. She failed miserably to disguise what Cara read as repulsion on her face. She didn't understand.

Cara looked back down at the photo. The hole from the umbrella had taken off half of the daughters head, making the bloody edges look like pieces of her shot out skull. It made Cara wonder how she had actually died, if that smile had been on her lips, or if she was still alive somewhere.  
>Dahlia's hand came out of nowhere and pushed the photo into the sink.<p>

"Stop staring at it and clean it off if you're gonna keep it!"

* * *

><p>The umbrella stood leaned against the kitchen door, dripping blood unto the shiny spotless floor. Slowly creating a dark red pool and a ridiculous image. <em>Fear me, I'm a weapon.<em>

Dahlia had had her gun when she left her apartment, but somewhere along the way she had been attacked and the gun had been lost. And as Cara was dragged back into that couch she had wanted nothing more than to hold its cold metal in her hands. So instead she ran, set out to find something else. Her mind had been on one of the knives in the kitchen, but in her hurry she had almost tripped over that childish umbrella. And in the chaos in her head the length of the umbrella seemed preferable to the sharpness of a knife, and it had proven to work just as well. But then Cara had to go and risk their lives just a bit longer for that stupid photo.

Dahlia looked over at the sink where Cara was stood cleaning that thing. Dahlia didn't understand. From what she could gather Cara hadn't known this man, so she could only assume she didn't know any of the others in the picture either. With that Dahlia saw no use in the photo other than to be reminded that those creatures out there was just as human as she was, something she did not want to believe.

Cara let out a gasp of pain and Dahlia was by her side in a second, cursing for not being able to restrain herself. She didn't want to care.

"What happened" She asked, trying to sound indifferent.

"Oh, there's nothing" Cara raised her right hand from out of the water. "I just got soap in this cut and it hurt like hell."

Dahlia felt her insides grow cold as she grabbed Cara's wrist.  
>"Did you get this now? Or did you have it before, in there?" Dahlia struggled to get the words out.<p>

"No, I mean I got them when I fell, I cut myself on the…"

"Did you get any blood in it? His blood?" Dahlia interrupted as she tightened her grip.

Cara looked confused.  
>"I don't… I mean, I'm not sure…"<p>

"Did you take the photo with this hand? Did you have his blood on this hand?" Dahlia nearly screamed, starting to panic.

"I don't remember… I guess" Cara managed to pull herself loose. But Dahlia took hold of her face and stepped closer.

"How are you feeling?" She asked as she stared examining Cara's eyes. "Do you feel strange or sick at all?"

Cara started to get frightened.  
>"No, why?"<p>

"Because obviously this thing, whatever it is, isn't airborn or we wouldn't be here. Maybe it's like a snakebite, if the poison hasn't spread yet you can still get it out" She let go of Cara's face, turned to the knife hold on counter and pulled out a knife. "I've got to cut it up and hope you bleed it out"

"You are insane!" Cara backed away until she hit the wall where she grabbed a frying pan. "Stay away from me"

"You stupid woman! If you don't let me do this I'm leaving you behind!" But Dahlia knew she wouldn't. Cara was already under her skin. "I'm not going to risk you turning into one of them, you hear me…"

There was a quiet tapping sound in the back of Dahlia's mind. Something trying to force itself forward, make her pay attention; _hey listen to me, I'm important. _  
>But she pushed it away as she pushed Cara against the wall, knocking the frying pan out of her hand. As it hit the floor with a bang the tapping grew louder, turned into an uneven knocking. Dahlia pressed Cara's injured hand against the wall and let the sharp blade rest alongside the flaming cut. Despite being taller than the feisty woman, Dahlia had some trouble keeping her still and trapped her with her whole body, leaving their faces mere inches from each other.<p>

The knocking had turned into banging but Dahlia couldn't focus on anything but Cara's eyes. There was something about them, something she recognized, something she knew and had always known; _would always know_. It wasn't the color or the shape, it was _these_ eyes and when Cara stopped struggling and returned Dahlia's stare Dahlia could feel a shudder run through the shorter woman's body as an electric bolt ran through hers.

"What was…?" she whispered as the battered door finally gave in and zombies fell inside, hands bloody from the scratching and beating.

Dahlia pushed herself away from Cara but they both struggled to break the eye contact. She placed herself next to Cara with her back to the wall. The only doorway was quickly filling up with people she doubted wanted anything but to feast on their brains and all they had to defend themselves with was a slim fish knife.

"The window, we go through the window and run to the car" Cara held up her hand to Dahlia, the cut palm up. "If you trust me?"

Dahlia grabbed it and they ran.


	3. Chapter 3

Cara watched the sun-cats dance over Dahlia's eyes. They looked blue now in the light of the setting sun. She was sure they where gray when they first met, but even as they had been pressed close together in the kitchen, Cara hadn't been able to really tell. They were gray then and blue now, or maybe they were both.

Dahlia's eyes left the road for a second and flickered towards Cara beside her. Cara looked away. Instead she turned her head to the deserted streets outside their stolen car. It was a ghost town now, belonging to the monsters and the dogs. She couldn't believe that she hadn't noticed before. Lost in her own head she had walked right through this, a city full of empty cars, empty houses, empty eyes. They drove passed packs of dogs eating humans, and packs of humans eating dogs, and she had to turn her eyes away again. They ended up on her cut palm. The wound was dark red and pounding, like something was trying to make its way out; a small dog-eating monster perhaps. As she pressed her palms together and making pain shot up her arm, imagining the monster going back with it, she felt her eyes wander back to Dahlia's face.  
>It was as Cara's eyes had a will of their own, and they always ended up on Dahlia. As the other woman stared at the road a frown came upon her face and her jaw tightened. It took all of Cara's willpower not to reach out and let her fingers trail over Dahlia's jaw line, from her ear to her lower lip, then keep going up and touch that rounded nose tip, and finally land at her forehead to smooth that tension between her eye brows. She kept her hands to herself, but she still knew how every part of Dahlia's face would feel like beneath her fingertips, like she had touched it a million times before. She closed her eyes, leaned back in her seat and thought back at their escape.<p>

* * *

><p>Cara had lounged herself up on the counter in front of the window. Her first thought had been to simply smash it with her hand to be able to get out as quickly as possible. But on second thought, a fist full off cuts didn't seem like the best idea considering what Dahlia had said. So instead she started struggling with the lock. It was a simple enough design, but with a dozen zombies pulling at her legs nothing seemed to make sense. Dahlia had placed herself behind Cara's back, between her and the danger. She held the slim fish knife in her hand, wielding it like some Olympic fencer, paring and attacking as the zombies crept closer. They didn't seem to have any of their human self-preservation left, as seeing their fellow monsters falling to the knife before them didn't seem to hinder them or even make them hesitate for a second. And it was every being for themselves as they climbed over the fallen, but still living bodies, biting and clawing each other to get to the prize first.<p>

"Any time now" Dahlia yelled back as she cut anything that came closer.

"I just… can't get this… thing open" Cara pushed and pulled and shrieked as two fingers rolled into her sight, still twitching and turning like two grey worms on the countertop.

Finally, as the fingers tried to journey up her leg, the lock gave in and the window opened with a high pitch noise that spoke of years of neglection.

Cara threw herself out of the window, landing face first among the flowers below. She had hardly had time to pull herself up the dry earth as Dahlia came tumbling from above, landing half on top of her and pressing her back down again. Dahlia grabbed her arm and pulled her up almost immediately. She held out the bloody knife.

"I'll drive, you cover me" She held up the keys and pointed towards the car like she was talking to a child.

She thinks I'm dumb, Cara thought. And once they were out of immediate danger Cara realized how dumb she had actually acted, or weak rather.

"Yeah, I think I'll manage that" her voice turned cold as she grabbed the knife. She resented the other woman for seeing her like that, something she hadn't even let the people she called her friends do. She didn't have a lot of them, and frankly there were no one she really cared that much for. But what had happened to them now? She hadn't even given that a thought until now. Where they running around like sleepwalking killers, or lying dead in a street corner? She was disturbed to find out that she really wasn't that bothered as to which it was. And she didn't have much family to speak of either. Her mother had been dead for years and her father never gave her a reason to care before he left. The only person whose fate made her heart drop was her sister. Sweet little Grace who was everything Cara was not, an A student, the family's little angel and their father's favorite. Grace had probably never picked up a weapon, definitely didn't own one. Cara felt tears threatening as the thought of her sister's survival grew slimmer in her mind. Grace had never been a fighter, that had always been Cara's part to play. She knew she had to play it again, for Grace.

"We are going to my sister's house" She said as they reached the car. Dahlia stopped dead in her tracks and turned around.

"Excuse me? No, we are not… We are getting the hell out of here!" Her eyes were grey now, cold.

"We are going to my sister's house" Cara repeated, slowly, in the same patronizing tone Dahlia had used earlier. She pointed to the ground with the bloody knife. "Or I am staying here"

It was a big risk to take; there was nothing to say that Dahlia wouldn't just leave her there to be eaten alive, nothing to really bind them together. But Cara thought of what had happened in that kitchen, the connection she had felt between them and hoped that was enough. And as she said it a flash of pain flew over Dahlia's face before she got it under control again, and her eyes flickered towards the house behind Cara. She could hear grunting as she imagined the zombies trying to follow them through the window. How long could she risk waiting for Dahlia before it was too late, before they were on them again? A muffled thud; someone had made it out of the window. Another one, then a third and a fourth and Cara lost track but didn't allow herself to break the stubborn eye contact. Instead Dahlia broke it first.

"Fine!" She snarled as she turned and opened the car door. For a second Cara thought she meant she would leave her there before she waved impatiently and added "just get in the car!"

Cara allowed herself a look over the shoulder as she set of to the passenger side. They were right behind her, a couple of seconds more and Dahlia wouldn't have had to make a decision at all. She swung the knife blindly behind her and almost fell over as it bit into something. She pulled and felt a spray of warm blood on her back. She looked again and a man had sunk to his knees, one hand covering the left side of his face trying to keep his jaw in place and the other holding half his ear. There was still a steady flow of zombies out the window, but at least they hadn't seemed to understand that they could use the front door. The ones outside closed in on her, one pushing the bleeding man aside, as Dahlia started the car with a roar. It made them hesitate and was enough to let Cara get to the car unharmed.

"Where?" Dahlia screamed as Cara buckled up and threw the knife into the backseat.

"Just drive!" Dahlia set the car in motion and made a U-turn over the grass, hitting countless zombies in her way. As the car reached the road and Dahlia hit the accelerator Cara look off at the house behind them. The broken windows and the now bloody lawn with its ugly tracks.

"Well, they had a lovely home" She looked at Dahlia who stared back with disbelief before she answered.

"I don't think they'll ever ask us over for dinner again"

* * *

><p>Dahlia didn't want to admit it, but she had actually considered leaving Cara there. Why wouldn't she? She didn't know this woman, didn't know anything about her except her name, her first name. And now that she had a sister she was willing to die for. She would have left but there was just something about Cara, the way she looked as she stood there dirty and bloody that made it impossible to do so.<p>

The image brought back a memory that wasn't hers, a memory of a fearsome woman in red with her hair in a tight braid. It was Cara, but at the same time it wasn't and she didn't know what to do with this image. The Cara before her and her dirty face made her want to protect her, but the other woman demanded respect. She found that she couldn't leave either of them. But it was the dirty version that won her over. And now they were on their way to save another woman she knew nothing about. She pretended to be mad about it.

As Cara sat staring at her own hands, Dahlia allowed herself one glance and smiled. Cara still had smudges of dirt on her face.


	4. Chapter 4

AN: I would like to apologize for it being a year since the last update. Life has happened, things have gone down. But now that all is hopefully back in order I'll try to keep it updated more often, if there is anyone still interested in this story. A big thank you to you if you in fact exists :)

Also like to say that this chapter is M for me putting Cara through hell and death and blood and all kinds of stuff that makes me a horrible person, enjoy!

* * *

><p>"Is it far?" Dahlia glanced over at Cara who had been quiet for far too long. Dahlia had never been comfortable in silence, she lived alone but in a loud apartment complex. Just take one step out the door and there would always be someone to talk to.<p>

"I'll tell you when" Cara didn't even turn her head. It hurt, for reasons unknown Dahlia wanted nothing but to see her face. She wanted to see if the person from before would reappear, but mostly she just wanted to see her eyes. There was something about them that wouldn't leave her alone.

"So what are you doing for a living? You have already seen how I make my money, and somehow I doubt you would be winning an award for outstanding citizen anytime soon" She glanced over at Cara again. This time she turned her head a little, so that she was facing the front window instead of the side one.

"I'm a writer"

"You're a writer?" Dahlia couldn't help but sound disbelieving.

Cara's jaw shifted but she kept her eyes forward.

"Yes. A writer"

"Okay, fine. So you just steal cars for shit's and giggles then?"

Cara finally turned to face her. Her eyes were cold.

"What can I say, it doesn't pay well… And it's none of your business anyway."

Dahlia stopped the car and Cara turned to look at her, confused.

"I'm sorry; I didn't mean to come off as…"

"No, it's not that." Dahlia broke her off. She pointed out the front window. "It's that."

Cara followed her finger out to the road ahead of them. "Oh…"

The road had turned into a frozen sea of colorful cars. Cara had noticed them before, two or three of them standing together, abandoned by the side of the road, but nothing like this. It was like everyone had suddenly decided to leave their cars and go for a walk instead. Dahlia had gotten out of the car and Cara followed her, never letting her eyes leave the wreck before her. It went on for as long as she could see, until the road turned, and who knew how much further after that. The buildings that ran along the sides of the road seemed to rise like giants and turn in against each other, closing out the sky above her as the reality of the situation finally struck Cara. It was strange that hundreds of empty cars could do this, while the things trying to kill them seemed to have failed. But the sight of this made it so much clearer in her mind, the grandness of the predicament they had found themselves in.

"We'll never get around this." Dahlia mumbled on the other side if the car. Her eyes were fixed on a point far ahead.

"No, we'll have to walk."

Dahlia looked at her, her eyes mixed with something that looked like fear and determination.

"Okay." She nodded at the back of the car. "Grab the knife."

Cara took the knife from the backseat. The blood had started to dry and the blade was altering between dark read and brown. Cara liked the brown better, that way she could pretend it was rust. She closed the door after her, along with the passenger door. She even sprinted to the other side to close Dahlia's door, which she had left open as she started walking away. It was silly and completely useless, but somehow it gave Cara some sense of order.

She caught up with Dahlia as she reached the first cars. They made sure not to touch any of them as the metal had gotten burning hot from hours in the sun. When they made their way deeper into the chaos an unpleasant smell started to creep onto them. It reminded Cara of that time a rat had died inside her wall and she had had to break it open to get it out. It was the smell of rotting meat. Dahlia stopped suddenly before her and Cara almost knocked her over.

"God, what is that?" She whispered and started walking slowly towards one of the cars. The door was swung open and something was hanging out. The smell had gotten overwhelming at this point. Dahlia turned around and pressed a hand over her nose and mouth.

"It's a head." Cara could barely make out what she said behind the hand.

"No it can't be…" She stared in disbelief at the thing. There was no way that was a head.

"It is." Dahlia whispered. "It's just…"

"Eaten" Cara finished. As soon as she could make out the form she felt her stomach turn. It had just looked like a piece of meat, but now she could make out the features and it made her sick. Chunks of meat had been torn of leaving teeth marks that looked suspiciously human. She studied the vehicles around them more closely. Three cars away she could see a bloated blue face pressed against the window. Black trails of dried blood made its way from the nose. It was the same in many of the other cars as well, most of them weren't abandoned at all, their drivers had died on the run. Many of the bodies she could see bore trails of being killed by those zombie-like creatures, but other's seemed to have just died in peace. They where hunched over their wheels like they had just fallen asleep. Cara turned to Dahlia, but the other woman was still facing the wall with her hand pressed against her mouth.

"There are still people in the cars." Cara said, moving towards her. "And they are dead. They are dead but still here. If those things are zombies, why aren't these?"

Dahlia turned around and lowered her hand. "Maybe it's that virus thing. Maybe it's affecting people differently. Some people dies, other's become crazy. And some…" She made a gesture between her and Cara, binding them together. "Some just go on living."

Cara looked at all the death around her. "Lucky us."

It was almost dark by the time they got to Cara's sisters place. The final part of the journey had taken them up a hill and when Cara drove the car round that last bend and up to the driveway of her childhood home all Dahlia could do was stare and marvel. The house was huge and as she turned in her seat she could see a view like no other with the city far below. From there it looked asleep, the calmness of it together with the setting and the violet clouds in the sky painted a perfect picture. A world untouched. A lie.

After they had found the bodies in the cars Dahlia seem to be able to do nothing else but stare into every window they passed, car and building alike, and soon wished she could stop. Because she found that more of them were inhabited by those blackening bloated corpses than she would have thought. She had been so busy looking out for the walking dead that it had never even occurred to her until now that there might still be _actual_ dead people.  
>As they walked Cara had picked up a habit as well, only her was to look at her clock every other minute, and the more she did so, the more annoyed Dahlia grew. She understood the reason for Cara's obvious impatience but still couldn't help the way her jaws tightened every time the other woman looked down on that silly little thing. Like time would matter now anyway.<p>

Eventually the cars had scattered and Dahlia had gotten them a new one, all free of people of any kind. She had learned at an early age that the ability to hotwire a car could be one worth having. Cara had offered to drive and Dahlia had agreed thinking that beyond the obvious reason, that Cara knew the way, now at least she couldn't constantly look at that damn watch.

And now here they were, in a stolen car in front of a giant house. Dahlia looked over at Cara, this was where she came from. Somehow that was hard to imagine. Nothing about Cara screamed wealth. She would never had guessed and a small part of her felt offended, like if Cara had deceived her, only played a part to fit in among the lower beings.

The inside was as overwhelming as the exterior, big open rooms with beautiful made wooden furniture, each piece looking more expensive then everything Dahlia owned put together. She didn't know if she should be impressed or if she should scream, but one thing she was sure of, she was going to have a serious conversation with Cara at one point or another. She had turned to crime because she had to, but Cara had all this to lean on, and it made her somewhat furious.

Cara had noticed the smell as soon as they entered the house. A fain smell of iron and raw meat. Her heart started beating faster, pushing blood to her head, beating in her ears, making it impossible to hear anything at all. But something told her there wasn't much to hear anyway. A certain emptiness in the air. She had always been able to sense when her sister was near, her father had said that they were like twins, only born years apart. But now there was nothing, nothing at all. She swallowed and pressed her hands to her ears and then let them slide down along the back of her neck, like she was trying to push down the blood in her head. She had sent Dahlia upstairs while she searched the bottom floor. It was riskier to go one and one, but it would be much faster, and right now finding Grace was all Cara could afford to concern herself with.

The rooms were all empty. All the knives hang neatly on their place in the kitchen, but Grace had kept a gun in a locked drawer that was gone, It gave her a strange mix of relief and despair. Hopefully it meant they got out in time, and were all alright, but some small part of her had hoped to have found her sister dead, and she hated herself for admitting it, but at least that would mean she wasn't one of those _things. _

She met up with Dahlia at the bottom of the stairs.

"Anything?" she though already knew the answer.

"No" Dahlia shaked her head slightly. "But there were clothes all over the floor and missing from the drawers, like someone had packed in a hurry. Maybe they left?"

Cara nodded and her eyes fell on the door nest to the staircase. The basement. She walked up to it and pushed. It was locked from the inside.

"Help me" she said and pushed again, put all her weight on the door, shoulder first. Dahlia joined her and on their third try the lock broke and the door swung open. The stench that met them was like a punch in the face and made Cara gag. Dahlia pressed her hand to her face and muffled out an "oh god". Cara reached into the dark and flipped a lightswich on the wall. Nothing. She flipped it again, and the a third time, still nothing.

"Grace?" She called into the dark, barely audible, like she didn't dare hear the answer.

She turned to Dahlia and pointed. "You see that cupboard by the door? There should be a flashlight somewhere inside. Can you see if you can find it?"

Dahlia nodded, went over and came back with a small flashlight. "You can't go down there." She said as she handed it over, her voice begging. She had already imagined the worst, just as Cara had.

"I have to." Cara swallowed hard. "I have to know."

She turned the flashlight on and took the first few steps down the stairs and was relieved to feel Dahlia's hand touching her own, taking it. They descended slowly, ready to turn back at any moment. Cara stopped suddenly as the beam of light reached a hand on the floor. It was a man's, bloody and holding the gun. Cara let the light trail along the arm and up to the face.

"Sirian." She whispered. "Grace's husband."

"He shot himself" Dahlia whispered back. "Whatever this is didn't affect him, or he felt it coming and decided to end it on his own terms. Maybe he was alone down here."

Cara took a few steps forward and let the light pass Sirian's body until it found another.

"Fuck, it's Carl, their son."

The boy had a bullet wound between his eyes, his hands were bloody, his nails broken.

"I'm so sorry" Dahlia whispered, tightening her grip on Cara's hand. "We should go back up, I don't…NO!"

Dahlia hit the flashlight out of Cara's hand, but she had already seen enough. Her niece was seated against the wall, stomach ripped open and a silent scream on he lips. Cara felt the taste of bile in the back of her mouth as she realized what had happened. Suddenly all the air seemed to disappear and her knees gave up under her. Dahlia caught her weight as she fell and dragged her back up the stares, letting them both collapse on the floor as they reached the top. Dahlia kicked the door shut behind her and scotched over to where Cara lay hyperventilating on the shiny parquet floor.

"He killed her." She pressed out. "His own sister. And Sirian, he… He…"

"We can't stay here" Dahlia urged. "You need air, we need to go outside, the smell…"

"Grace." Cara pushed out.

"It doesn't matter. You can't go back down there" Dahlia rose, took hold of Cara's arm and pulled her back up. "I'm so sorry."

The stumbled out the front door and sunk back down on the perfectly gravelled driveway. Dahlia took Cara's face in her hands and they breathed together as one until Cara's breath was back to normal. That's when the humming started. A soft sound from the back of the house.

They turned around the corner and came out on a big lawn behind the house. A figure sat huddled in the middle of it, rocking back and forth.

"Grace?" Cara whispered. The figure stopped moving. "Grace"

Cara tock a step towards her, but Dahlia grabbed her arm.

"Wait… Be careful, she might be… Changed" She saw Cara's eyes darken.

"No" She shook of Dahlia's hand and tock a few steps forward, calling her sister's name once more.

The woman on the grass turned slowly, revealing her face. Dahlia let out a gasp and saw Cara freeze in her tracks before her.

Grace's left eye was missing from its socket, replaced by a black gaping hole and tracks of bloody tears. It rested instead in the middle of her hand. By the looks of it, someone had tried to take of the nose too, and it hanged half attached to her face revealing the bone underneath the skin.

"Grace!" Cara screamed and would have run towards her had she not been stopped by Dahlia's hands.

"No!" Dahlia turned Cara towards her and grabbed her hard by the shoulders. "I'm so sorry, but you can't go to her!" Cara pushed of her hands, but Dahlia tock her hold again. "It's not her anymore. You can't risk going to her."

"She is my sister!" Cara removed Dahlia's hands from her shoulders and took them in her own. "She's not… I don't care what she is, she is still my sister"

"She could kill you, or bite you." Dahlia tried to find some sense in Cara's eyes, but they glistened in sorrow and rage.

Grace grunted where she sat and tried to get up, dropping the eye to the ground. Cara turned her head towards her and then away again, pressing her eyes together to entrap the tears. "She is my sister…"

"It's not her, not anymore"

"How do you know?" Cara threw down Dahlia's hands and turned to where they came from, storming off. Dahlia turned to look at Grace, who didn't seem to be going anywhere, before she took off after Cara. She reached her at the car, as she flung the backdoor open and picked up the bloody knife from its restingplace.

"Cara? Cara, what are you doing?" Dahlia approached her slowly, raising her hands just in case.

Cara raised the knife and pointed it's sharp edge at Dahlia's chest, at her heart. "How do you know? Huh? Who are you to say? Maybe she is still in there, trapped." She lowered the knife. "I can't leave her like that..."

Dahlia didn't know what to say so she stepped close to Cara and took her face in her hands. "Don't" She whispered. "Please don't"

"I have to, I always saved her" Cara stepped away and let Dahlia's hands fall towards the ground.

"Give me ten minutes. If I'm not back by then, leave" Cara took a firm grip around the knife and started walking slowly towards the house.

"Wait!" Cara turned around, face hard as stone, clearly expecting Dahlia to try to talk her out of it. "Sever the head from the body…" Dahlia looked down at her feet, not bearing to face Cara.

"What?"

"That's what you have to do…" Dahlia swallowed hard, not raising her eyes. "To… To release her…" Another swallow. "You'll have to sever her head from the body, that's how you do it…" She finally met Cara's eyes. Cara nodded slowly.

"Okay, thanks…" She turned away again and headed for what was left of her sister while Dahlia got in to the car. She seated herself behind the wheel and stared at the little clock at the panel. Ten minutes. Was that all you needed to kill the person you loved the most? Would she be able to do that to her mother, even in this state? She doubted it. So would Cara be able to do it to her sister? She didn't even know her, so was she that person? Ten minutes…  
>She wasn't there anymore, it wasn't really her. That was what she had said. But who was she to assume that? Maybe she was there, stuck, helpless.<p>

The car seemed too small, too confining, so she got out and walked restlessly around it. Without a though she started listening for any sound that could tell her what went on; a swing of the knife or Cara's call for help, but there was nothing but the wind in the trees. She looked at the time through the rear window. Seven minutes had passed, three remained. It wasn't like she was going to leave anyhow. She hadn't left her in the kitchen with the cut hand, nor in the garden when she had made her demands, so she wasn't planning on doing it now either. How it had gotten that way she had no idea, but there it was, she was willing to put herself at great risk for this person. She glanced at the house and got back into the car, staring at the clock once more. Ten minutes, twelve, fourteen.

Her hand brushed against the key in the ignition as the passenger door opened and Cara flew inside. She closed the door with a bang and threw the knife into the seat behind her. Her entire body shook and her hands traveled nervously up and down the outsides of her thighs, leaving bloody tracks. Dahlia couldn't take her eyes of her. Had she, had she really?

"Cara?"

Cara stopped shaking and looked back at Dahlia, tears in her eyes. "I'm not a very good person… I'm a con artist. I take people's money. I live of other people's savings. I'm not a writer or a painter or a well doer. I'm nothing but a fraud" She brushed away the tears but others took their place and mixed with the blood her hand had left behind. "I'm not a good person…"

Cara's hands started moving again and Dahlia took one of them in her own. She could feel the blood on it mix with the sweat on her own, binding them together in a way. Cara might not be a good person, but to be honest neither was she. And no matter how it had happened, they where in this together. "What do you need me to do?"

The con artist looked at their combined hands and then up at Dahlia. "Help me bury her."

The thief nodded.

She had come here to save her, like she always did. But this was not the way she had ever imagined it to go. She had let the though of her sister being changed cross her mind, but she had never really seen it an actual possibility. So when it was there right in front of her, she did the only thing she could think of, the only thing she though Grace would have wanted her to. Because how sick it may seem she would rather have her sister at rest, then roaming the world as one of those things. Rather know that she was free, than the possibility that she was trapped inside that ragged body, forced to see through its eyes the pain it could cause.

Dahlia had helped her dig the grave, in front of the house beneath a big willow. It had been her sister favourite place, her husband had even hung a swing from one of the lower branched, allowing her to sit out there and read. Now it would serve as her final restingplace. When they where done Cara had gotten her sisters finest linen sheets to wrap the body in, and told Dahlia that she could leave if she wanted to. But the other woman had stayed and helped her lower the body into the soil. She had looked disgusted for a split second as Cara cradled her sisters linen covered head in her arms, but at that time Cara couldn't care less what she though. All she could think of was when her sister used to climb up beside her in the sofa when they where kids and lay her head in Cara's lap. She used to play with her golden hair for hours then. Now it was covered in dirt and blood beneath the fabric, separated from the rest of her by Cara's own hands.


	5. Chapter 5

AN: This is just a short scene and not really a full chapter, but I never have time to write and I don't want it to be as long in between chapters as it was, so here is a short bit to tide you over ;)

* * *

><p>Dahlia lay awake in the dark, staring at the nothingness before her. Her hand had gone numb from holding Cara's, but it didn't matter, she couldn't bring herself to let go. After the funeral the dark had fallen quickly. Dahlia had asked if they should try to find shelter somewhere else, or just sleep in the car, but Cara had said no. She wanted to spend the night here, one last night in her childhood home. She had taken the knife and silently gone up the stairs to Grace's bedroom. Dahlia had pushed the cupboard in front of the door after locking it, and put a chair in front of the one leading to the basement, just in chase. Then she had followed Cara up the stairs. She had hesitated for a second in the doorway, not sure if she should find another room to sleep in. But considering what Cara had just been through she figured she didn't want to be alone. And as soon as she laid herself next to the seemingly sleeping Cara, she felt her hand move against her own and took it. Dahlia guessed it must have been at least a couple of hours now, but without power the alarm clock on the bedside table stared blank at her. She propped herself up on her elbows, careful not to wake Cara, and leaned close to see the watch on her arm. 2:47am.<p>

Her hand was empty. Her waking brain told her there was something wrong with that. It made her hand reach out and feel the soft fabric to her right. Her eyes flew open. The room was bathing in light, and the other side of the bed was empty. She sat up and exhaled when she saw Cara sitting in a chair by the window, something in her hand.

"Hey" She said and looked over at Dahlia. "I figured I'd let you sleep. It's not like we have somewhere to be." She gave a small smile.

"What time is it?" Dahlia's voice cracked with sleep.

Cara looked down at her arm. "Almost half past ten." Her head turned back to the window. "It's a beautiful day today." She closed her eyes to the sunlight.

"You have changed clothes?" It wasn't really a question. Instead of the jeans and black top she had been wearing yesterday, Cara had on a pair of dark pants and a big hoodie.

"Yeah, I looked in Grace's closet. All her clothes were still there, unlike Sirian's. I guess she turned first, and that's when he decided to take the kids and hide in the basement. Wait it out, I guess. Almost all the food is gone too. I found some crackers in a cabinet if you're hungry." She looked at Dahlia. "You are a bit taller than Grace, but I think her clothes should fit. If you want to change?"

"Yeah… I'd like that, thanks." Dahlia felt a bit strange about wearing Cara's dead sisters clothes after yesterday, but the ones she had one were covered with blood and dirt. She went into the closet and stripped to her underwear. "Is there any water?" she asked behind her back.

"No, there is no power at all, no water." Came Cara's reply. Instead she pulled on a pair of jeans. The were a bit short, like Cara had said, but otherwise fit well. She put on a black tank top and a plaid shirt over that and went back into the bedroom.

"Do you know if there are any bags? We should probably pack some of the clothes, I think we'll need them."

Cara the frame she had been holding in her hand, opened it and took out the picture of Grace it held. She folded it carefully, but it in her pocket and put back the empty frame on a small table beside her chair. Dahlia felt uneasy as she looked at the black background, at the darkness that occupied the space where Grace had just been. She had to look down as Cara passed closely by her on her way into the closet. She couldn't bare to look at her, afraid if it would be pity or disgust Cara would be able to read in her eyes, not even sure how she really felt. What she did know what that she didn't want Cara to see either. She swallowed and followed the shorter woman. Cara was reaching up and rumbling around on a high shelf.

"There should... be some... here" She muttered and pulled, but instead of a bag a grey shirt fell down and landed on the floor before Cara's feet. She bent down and picked it up, held it carefully like it was a cherished treasure.

"She never could keep track of her things." She looked at Dahlia, her eyes glistering. "You might not believe it looking at me, but I was always the more organized sister, at least when it came to my things." She brought the shirt up to her face, cradled it like a child might cradle a blanket, then she fell down on the floor. It was like all strength had gone out of her, she had given up and just let herself go.

Dahlia was by her side faster than she though was possible, she must have started moving before Cara had even hit the ground, like she had known, like she had felt it coming.

"Cara?" She whispered and moved the shirt from Cara's face. Tears was falling freely from Cara's eyes as she looked up on her.

"I failed her" she got out between sobs. "She was my sister, how could I do that?" She looked desperate for Dahlia to answer her, but she had nothing.

"How could I do _that?!_" She looked down at her hands then started rubbing them against her thighs like she had done in the car, rubbing the blood away. She was shaking furiously as Dahlia grabbed her hands and brought them around her own shoulders before taking Cara in her arms, holding her close.

"It's okay" She tried to sound calming, she didn't know what else to do. "It was the right thing to do." She wasn't sure if she tried to convince Cara or herself.

Cara cried into Dahlia's hair. "But she was my sister, I was supposed to protect her. I always did. It was my job to keep her safe." Dahlia put her hand at the back of Cara's head.

"It was my job." Cara repeated. "I always kept her safe, always made sure no one hurt her." She pulled out of the embrace and looked Dahlia in the eyes. "So how could I do that? How could I be the one to hurt her like that, I was supposed to save her." Cara's eyes were filled with so much pain, so much regret, and Dahlia knew what to say. The truth.

"You did save her; you did save your sister. Cara…" Dahlia put her forehead against Cara's. "When you stopped her from go on like one of those things, when you set her free. That was you saving her, one last time." Cara nodded and let out a shaking breath. A tear ran over Dahlia's thumb as she ran it along Cara's cheek. "You saved her."


End file.
